awhile back, i picked up a copy of homer's odyssey because i'm a sucker for a good animal story. i enjoyed it so much i passed it on to my mom. my mom fell in love with the story too and decided to email the author. for those of you who don't know, my mom's parents were both blind from a very young age and she is now writing a book about their extraordinary life. the author wrote back and was beyond nice - they are now friends on fb.
the author's blog in case any of you want to know more about this sweet kitty: http://gwencooper.com/blog.php
about a month or so ago, gwen posted this picture and said this baby kitty was looking for her "furr-ever" home. because i'm a sucker for kitties, especially b&w ones and ones that nobody else seems to want to adopt... i emailed mom and said wouldn't she be just the perfect addition to our home! a blind kitty for a mom writing a story about her blind parents! to my surprise she emailed me her email that she'd sent to gwen about the kitten! woah. that was easy!
here is the story of the baby kitty as told by a shelter volunteer:
“India is a 5 week old kitten who came into the Austin Pets Alive Bottle Baby program at the beginning of May. Her litter came in with moderate eye infections. India’s proved to be more serious. Very early on it became clear that here eyes were damaged badly and she would be blind. I was wondering if we might be able to get a little help from Homer to get her story out.
A little bit about Austin Pets Alive. We are a rescue located in Austin, Texas with the goal of making Austin the first major metropolitan area to be a true no-kill city. In March the city hit a 90+ save rate, officially starting the clock on marking us as true no-kill. One of the ways we achieve this is through our bottle baby program. In most cities, orphaned and ill kittens are put down because of the time and resources required. We’ve got a dedicated Bottle Baby nursery where volunteers like myself staff shifts around the clock to ensure orphaned, unweaned kittens have a fighting chance. The approach is simple, any kitten who fights is given a more than fair shot to live. Kittens are given medication, tube feeding and surgery as needed.
This brings us to India. Most rescues would have put her to sleep when the extent of her eye infection became apparent. Our vets checked her out and determined that with surgery she will be able to have a perfectly fine quality of life. They believe her condition is either feline herpes or a congenital glaucoma. So since she arrived she’s been cared for. She’s been treated with high end antibiotics, administered pain medication as needed, and generally spoiled rotten. We’ve made sure that she stayed with a litter mate so she wouldn’t get lonely. Today she’s off to foster so she can keep growing. Once she’s big enough, the vets will schedule surgery to remove her eyes.
when we finally heard back from the shelter, we were told that someone in the austin area was interested in adopting her and thanked us for our interest. they asked if the austin adopter fell through, could they still contact us? welllllll, we'd lost hope and moved on when a few weeks later we got a random email asking if we were still interested in adopting this baby kitten... after thinking about it and convincing dad he neeeeeeeded another kitten and we swore this would be the last one! we wrote and said, "absolutely".
since we were busy and the foster family was traveling, we were finally able to pick her up last friday. it was love at first sight!
we've renamed her lily and here she is on my bed. she's staying in my room until she adjusts and until we can introduce her to her big brother and sisters.
she loves this basket. she loves to play in, on, and around!
kyle gave her this chicken which is actually a dog toy, but she loves it! it is just her size to rough house with!
chicken!!!!
she can be super playful at times...
moving on from the chicken to the conveniently hanging strings to play with!
she's all tuckered out here. look how little she is in that big chair! she is 2.9 lbs!!
she takes great pictures! you never have to worry about that freaky red eye and when she hears the camera making it's little noises, she looks right up at it! she's super sensitive to sounds and smells and is so good at navigating and getting around. i think she is the cutest thing.
she loves to snuggle and cuddle and purrs very loudly and incessantly. it's so amazing to feel her snuggled against you purring. so relaxing and so loving. here, she looks all innocent but really she's playing with my hair. she loves hair as a toy.
this is a blankie that someone in WA who'd heard about it sent to the shelter to keep her cozy. that's her carrier/bed. when she gets all tuckered out from playing to much or filling her belly, she puts herself to bed and curls up inside her carrier. it's beyond cute.
and here's what i call the lily necklace. she loves to sleep like that. we spent many hours snuggling.
and i'll admit, when i had to say goodbye yesterday i hadn't known the kitten but for a few days and i was smitten. i cried. a few times throughout the day knowing i would have to leave her and i don't know when i'll get to see that sweet face again.
while we were in austin, we had dinner with my mom's friend. when we told her about the kitten, she said she'd never be able to adopt a blind cat as she wouldn't be able to stand not seeing the eyes. omg, seriously, this kitten has the sweetest face and i love her face without those eyes. she doesn't need them and she is pretty darn amazing. she's had a pretty rough start to her life, but in the harper household she will never ever have any more hardship and she'll lead a pretty amazing life. lucky lily!!
4 comments:
what a great story!! i just read an article about this place...like a few days ago. actually thought about sending it to you, but forgot!
you did?! homer advocates the blind cat rescue and i actually just made a small donation on his and lily's behalf.
if you see it again, send it my way!
awwww how sweet that this adorable kitten has such a loving home. so sweet.
she is so cute, and such a good story!
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